170 THE IMPOETANCE OF BIRD LIFE 



final extermination of all our birds. Tlie A. 0. U. 

 and the Agricultural Department threw them- 

 selves into the breach with the fury of despair. 



In 1886 the Ornithologists' Union, which was 

 composed of men who had spent their lives study- 

 ing and compiling statistics on the actual mone- 

 tary value of birds, drew up an outline for a law 

 which would deal with the protection of native 

 birds. This was submitted to the various States 

 for ratification. Until that time each State had 

 had a code of its own to limit the shooting seasons, 

 but that was as far as they had gone. There had 

 been no attempt anywhere to differentiate scien- 

 tifically between the game and non-game birds. 

 What was called a song-bird in one State might 

 be called a game-bird in another. Neither class 

 had any universal specific grouping. This was the 

 condition that the A. 0. U. strove to rectify. 



The Audubon Law, as it was called, laid down 

 by the ornithologists, gave the birds a correct rat- 

 ing as seen from a scientific point of view, and 

 offered a closed season on all species that could 

 not be considered true game-birds. The law was 

 immediately adopted by New York and Massa- 

 chusetts, in the year it was drafted; but so slow 

 were the majority of the people in the United 

 States in grasping its significance that twenty- 

 three years had passed before the remainder of 

 the States had acted upon it. 



The effect of the new law on birds at once be- 



